Mr. Unavailable #113: The Sacrifice

See The Phoenix Rises, Paper Perfect, More Nouveau, Please, Visions of Sundance, Spring Fever, Fantasyland and It’s Purely Textual for the background on this one.

After waiting all day Thursday for #113 to text back with a time he was free and hearing nothing, I went to bed, depressed.

At 11:56 p.m., he texted:

#113: So crazy today, tomorrow?

I waited until Friday morning to respond. This time, I responded much more guardedly.

Me: Sure. Let me know when you’re free.

I went about my day, but, again, the hours went by. And as they did, it became more and more clear that I was not a priority for him. I was merely an option. 

This was the kind of thing that was crazy-making. Didn't he come to New York primarily to see me? Or did I have a super-inflated ego? Or was that what he had wanted me to believe? I reviewed his past texts: He wanted to spend more time with me…he wanted to take me back to Arizona with him. No, I wasn't crazy.

I met up with Eva and her friend Yasmine, who was in from L.A., for dinner. I’d hung out with Yasmine before. She’d written the most-read relationship article on The Huffington Post and was about to come out with a book that had the same title as the article.

When she’d originally sent us a message over Facebook saying she was coming back to town and wanted to hang, I replied regretfully but optimistically:  “Hey Girl, I have a boy in from out of town. I probably won’t be able to hang out on Friday but I’ll let you know if anything changes. I’m sorry to miss you! XoT”

I followed it up with a different kind of message Thursday night: “I may see you after all. The guy is MIA.”

And then Friday afternoon I texted her: “Hey, let’s meet for dinner.”

By the time we all met up for dinner at the Thai place on Houston at 9:30 p.m., I still hadn’t heard anything from #113.

“I’m trying to decide where my line is,” I said. “Unfortunately, I think I’ve crossed it. I’m done. If he contacts me now, forget it.”

“You can keep it light and polite,” Yasmine said. “’Hey, I’m already out with some peeps. Catch you next time.’ I want to see a photo of this guy.”

I pulled up his Facebook profile on my phone and prefaced the photo-reveal with what I always preface it with. “He photographs really well,” I said. “He doesn’t really look like this. He looks all suave and charismatic and confident in his photos but, in real life, he’s really nerdy and kind of hunched over and more humble looking.”

I gave her my phone so she could see. “Oh, no, no, no,” she said. “Look at the ego on that one. Oh, no.”

“But that’s not really what he looks like,” I said.

“But that’s what he puts forth,” she said. “No. I’m dating a neuroscientist and the egos on these guys are astronomical. This guy is rich and he probably has women undeservedly flocking to him—especially if that’s what he wants them to see.”

It was true. I wasn’t so attracted to him when I first met him, but all the stuff that surrounded him—primarily the air of nouveau docteur riche and intelligence—was like some kind of drug. And then, on top of that, when I saw how truly nerdy he was, I found him endearing. I thought he was different. I thought he was a nice Jewish neurologist without the power-tripping attitude. Clearly, I was wrong.

At 10:18 p.m., he texted. I read it and then sullenly handed my phone to Yasmine, shaking my head slowly. She read it out loud so Eva could hear.

“’Friend is playing at the living room on Ludlow street. Come join. If you can,’” she read.

I was angry. “If you can”? Where was the, “I want to take you back to Arizona with me”? Not only that, but, obviously, he was able to make plans with his friends but he was not able to make plans with me—he was only able to fit me in where it was convenient.

I started to formulate a light-and-polite response about how I was busy: “Hey…” I started.

“Don’t even respond,” Yasmine said. “He’s on a power trip. To see if he can get you to come running when he wants you to. To see if you’re up for doing everything on his terms. He’s not going to make a plan or want to know your schedule. He’s incapable of a relationship.”

I was done. But what was the best way to be done? “Is not responding the best way to cut it off?” I asked, slicing my hand through the air.

“He doesn’t deserve a response. What a loser,” Eva said.

“Yeah,” I said, agreeing, “why postpone inevitable pain.”

“I don’t even get that,” Eva said. Eva was still inexorably intertwined with the ex-con. They were no longer seeing each other romantically, but they couldn’t manage to extricate themselves from the mutually fueled drama.

“Why bother. He’s not what I thought he was,” I said, “or what he pretends to be.”

And then Yasmine described how she exorcises men such as these from her reality. “What I like to do is envision myself as if in old Aztec times. I’m wrapped in the Aztec skins or fabrics or whatever they are, with the beads around my neck and everything and I take the guy and put him in a basket and there’s, you know, I imagine the pyramids that they had and I walk up the steps of the pyramid and I place the basket at the top and then I offer him to the Aztec gods or whatever and then I walk back down. And I leave him there. And then if I ever start to think about him, I just imagine him up on the top of the pyramid in that basket, where I left him.”

“Like a sacrifice,” I said. “I have to give him to the universe to let the universe know that I’m not having any of this.”

“Exactly,” she said.

So I went home and sacrificed him. It's only been a few days, so I figure he's currently suffering from exposure.

Signs of Hope: For me? Because I’m not putting up with any of this bullshit? Lots.

Red Flags: The Mr. Unavailables just keep piling up. Maybe this will be my last Unavailable experience. No, this will be my last unavailable experience.

Turning Point: When he texted me Friday night with no apology, no regrets for being flaky, nothing, except to act like I was his beck-and-call girl.

Diagnosis: For him: He has a chronic and terminal case of unavailability.
For me: Well, I’m not taking it personally, which is a small miracle, and, because he’s now stranded at the top of an Aztec pyramid, he can no longer bother me. I’m moving on—quickly, in fact. I already have a date on Monday. 

Mr. Unavailable #113: It's Purely Textual

See The Phoenix Rises, Paper Perfect, More Nouveau, Please, Visions of Sundance, Spring Fever, Girls’ Night Out, Part I and Girls’ Night Out, Part II for the background on this one.

It was a month and a half past my last communication with #113 and I was bored. I’d finished “Calling in the One” and had shot out of the find-the-one gate with one sleepover and a revolving door of crushes, all of which got crushed—one turned out to be gay, another was a misdirected crush on a friend who’d recently split with his girlfriend. I was itchy and wanted attention. Although I’d kind of pushed the door closed on #113 with my Valentine’s Day text, the door was really still ajar. 

It was early April and, after resisting the urge for more than a week, I texted him a photo of some advertising that used the phrase “small batches.” It was our inside joke. I was fishing for a renewed flirtation.

Me: Small Batches.

He responded two hours later:

#113: So funny. Everything in small batches. Large batches not good?

He didn’t appear to be taking the bait. Who’d blame him, though. A month and a half before, I’d thrown cold water on his textual advances.

But then, two hours after that:

#113: Need a batch of you.

He bit.

Me: Yes, I think you do.

#113: May come back to NYC next month.

Me: Oh, do. It would be nice to see you.

With his history of disappearing, however, I’d believe it when I saw it.

Five days later, it was like he had a sixth sense for when I was up to no good because he texted me while I was shimmying closer and closer to #136 at R Bar.

#113: Happy Easter. Are you out tonight?

It was weird how he knew.

We went back and forth for another two weeks going on about our inside joke. And then I got this one Sunday morning:

#113: Would be nice to see you this morning. Read paper with me. It sunshine here. Blue sky.

This time, I was the one who bit. I could feel my guard coming down.

Me: Mmm. That sounds good. Reading the paper. I wish I were there.

We went back and forth about sharing the paper and the parts we’d read, not read and make fun of—kind of like a bad New York Times ad.

And then for the next week, we reverted back to “small batches” jokes. It was silly but it kept me entertained. I wanted attention and I was getting it.

One Saturday night, I’d done the same-old, same-old—dinner with a couple of acquaintances—and was walking home feeling lonely and tired—of the same-old. And then I got this:

#113: Would be nice to be around you longer.

Me: I agree.

#113: Like you came back with me.

At that moment, that was exactly what I wanted to hear. I nearly cried. Go back to Arizona with him? For a few days? Why not? Somehow, my decision felt monumental, as if I’d just decided I’d move there. I waited until I got home and, sitting on my bed, I wrote him back.

Me: Maybe I could.

Sunday rolled around.

Then Monday.

Tuesday.

Wednesday.

On Thursday, I went to see my shrink.

“This is the doctor, right?” she said after I told her the latest and shared how baffled I was by his silence. “You have to throw out all the rules when you’re dealing with doctors. Right now, he’s figuring it out. He’s rearranging his schedule to be able to come. Just wait it out. He’ll get back in touch when he knows when he’s coming.”

Friday.

Saturday.

Sunday.

Monday.

Tuesday.

And then, on Wednesday:

#113: I am back in NYC next week. See you

He was arriving in a week.

My mind went into overdrive, making me believe these things:

He was coming purely to see me. We would get together Wednesday night for dinner and then spend all day Thursday and Friday together if I could get Thursday off. Oh, and Saturday and Sunday. And then maybe I’d consider flying back to Arizona with him for a few days—if he asked.

I was planning my outfit, doing a little shopping, laundering my bedding. And then Wednesday rolled around. As the hours ticked by and I heard nothing, I began to edit the story. Maybe we’d get together for a late dinner…maybe we’d get together for dessert…maybe he didn’t come here to just see me. My illusions cracked. He texted at 11:30, after I’d gone to bed, to say he was there and ask when I was free on Thursday. I texted him back Thursday morning.

Me: Morning! I have to go to work but am done at 5. Maybe lunch?

Then, a few hours later:

Me: Maybe I can leave work early, too.

And a few minutes after that:

Me: It looks like I can get out at 1. Now the question is: Are you free?

1 p.m. rolled around, then 2 p.m. I stayed at work, went and got a manicure, came back to work.

Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing.

Signs of Hope: According to the text messages I got from him, he is technically somewhere in New York City.

Red Flags: I was expecting a passionate reunion. This is an extremely dispassionate non-reunion.

Turning Point: When Wednesday rolled into Thursday and Thursday dragged on and on and on.

Diagnosis: For him: For the last 48 hours anyway, he’s been nothing but unavailable.
For me: Is it me? Am I being too eager? He did say he wanted to take me back to Arizona with him, didn’t he? Last time, he was the one in Fantasyland, but this time, am I the one in Fantasyland? And was I lured there or did I just go willingly? 

Mr. Unavailable #137: Girls' Night Out, Part II

See Spring Fever and Girls’ Night Out, Part I for the background on this one.

Around 2 a.m., we arrived at #137’s place deep on the lower east side. His one-bedroom apartment was on the 13^th floor of a high rise. It appeared to be a proper apartment—with a living room and a kitchen and a bedroom with a door. Nora and Chiseled were already supine on the sofa in the living room when we arrived, so #137 made me a seltzer with his Soda Stream in his very tastefully decorated kitchen (of course) as I happily twisted back and forth on a green Lucite counter stool.

His attention to detail was more than metrosexual. He had an extra toothbrush (of course), and then, as I sat on the toilet seat and we brushed our teeth together, he offered me a contact case for my contact lenses. He even asked if I wanted to take off my makeup or anything—then saying, as if to cover himself, that he didn’t actually have any makeup remover. 

In his bedroom, he gave me some articles of clothing to put on—a T-shirt and shorts—because he was a tighty-whitey kind of guy—and we unceremoniously climbed into bed. It was an interesting overnight. Through my borrowed chastity shorts, I could tell that he was turned on, but because I was only really there to experience his apartment—and his rather large bedroom—I kept saying coy things like, “I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Oh, stop,” he’d say, sounding irritated. There was evidence of straightness, after all. His irritation, the fact that I was even there at all…little things like that.

But the evidence as to something otherwise kept piling up. For example, I noticed that he had absolutely zero chest hair. Did he shave it? Laser it? Was it natural?

I heard Nora slip out around 6 a.m., which woke us. #137 set the alarm for 9 a.m. so I could make my noon brunch. At 9 a.m., as we got out of bed, he took my number and, as I got dressed, texted me. I laughed when I saw what he’d written.

“Hi, nice to meet u,” it said. Funny, sure, but a bit less than what I would have otherwise hoped for. We kissed good-bye in his foyer—an actual foyer—and I made my way to the elevator.

When I was a few blocks away, I replied to his text: “Likewise, I’m sure.”

At brunch, Kevin asked if there was potential. “Yes, I think so, if I can get over his gayness.”

“Maybe that could work in your favor,” Kevin said.

“Yeah, maybe if I’m turned off by his gayness, I won’t be that gaga over him and I can actually get to know him and see what he’s like and see if I even like him before getting deeply involved with him.”

“Um, actually, I was thinking that could work in your favor because he probably has good taste and could buy you nice things.”

“Oh, that, too,” I said.

Later, I asked Nora if she got a gay vibe from him. “I didn’t speak to him all night,” she said, “but when I saw his apartment, I definitely thought he was gay.”

One day went by, then two, the three and then one week turned into two weeks and I hadn’t heard from him. Maybe he felt rejected because I refused his advances. Maybe he was worried about the whole I-know-the-people-he-works-with thing. Or, maybe, he really was gay.

Signs of Hope: He seemed interested.

Red Flags: He also seemed gay.

Turning Point: When I didn’t hear from him.

Diagnosis: For him: See the three “maybe’s” above.

For me: I was glad Nora got a gay reading, too. At any rate, his disappearance didn’t really matter. Because 1, well, you know. And 2, #113 and I had been back in text touch for a week before I’d even met #137. And he was talking about coming back into town...

Mr. Unavailable #137: Girls' Night Out, Part I

See Spring Fever for the background on this one.

As someone who doesn’t really drink, I don’t go out for drinks very often. But with a full-blown case of spring fever and a very open mind, I found myself—at 11 p.m. on one particular Saturday night—out for drinks with Nora at R Bar on the Bowery, watching groups of girls take their turns around a couple of stripper polls.

It was an educational evening. I learned that the new fashion is for women to wear the shortest dresses possible—no matter your size or shape. I also learned that a short dress is not a liability when dealing with a stripper poll, not if one of two things happens: the dress is appropriately tight or the woman in the dress clenches tightly with her legs.

Nora and I settled onto a banquette with drinks and scanned the room. A group of pretty boys stood across from us at the bar.

“I like all of them, especially that one,” Nora said, noting a particularly chiseled, bearded man. “I usually don’t like guys with facial hair, but he’s cute.”

“Oh, he knows he’s cute,” I said, meaning that that was his problem.

I picked out another one from the group that I liked, too. Dark hair, clearly fit—the kind of guy who wears aftershave and irons his shirts.

I turned to take a sip of my drink and when I turned back, the chiseled one had bolted across the room to sit at Nora’s side. They started talking and, within minutes, were making out.

I looked around, knocked at the ice cubes in my glass with my straw, went to the bathroom, came back, sat down, looked around some more. And then I saw the dark-haired, fit one approach. He said something to Chiseled and Chiseled leaned over Nora and introduced us.

“Tara, this is [#137],” Chiseled said.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” #137 said.

I hadn’t noticed from a distance, but, up close, he just seemed gay—maybe it was the lilt at the end of his introduction, or his product-laden hair, or the slight bounce in his step, or his symmetrical features. Whatever it was, it was palpable.

Oh, the chiseled guy's nice gay friend has come over to keep me company, I thought. Too bad he’s gay.

We started talking. It turned out that he worked at a mutual fund company that I did freelance work for—and, on a daily basis, he worked with the people I dealt with. We did a full department name check: “Do you know Angela? Greg? Carrie?” Check. Check. Check.

“That’s crazy,” I said, grabbing the arm of my new gay friend.

“Wow, what a small world,” he said, “Now I can’t say anything about how it really is there.”

“Yes, you can,” I said, smiling big and jumping up and down. There was no need to hide my spastic personality, after all. He was gay.

“Do you want a drink?” he said.

That was nice. Chiseled’s gay friend wanted to buy me a drink.

We stood by the bar with our fresh drinks.

“Well…now that we know the same people in a business context, I can’t say what I was going to say, “ he said.

“What can’t you say? Just tell me,” I pleaded.

“Well, you’re practically a colleague so now it’s kind of out of line…” he said, brushing his hand across mine.

“No, it’s not,” I said.

“Well, I was going to say, it’s too bad you’re practically a colleague because you’re really cute. Did you see me checking you out before?”

Aw, Chiseled’s gay friend was hitting on me. Wait. Oh my god. Chiseled’s gay friend wasn’t gay.

#137. Was. Not. Gay.

“No, I didn’t see you checking me out,” I said, trying to wrap my head around his newfound heterosexuality.

“Good. That means I was being slick,” he said. Taking my hands, he started to dance with me. And, no surprise, he could dance. As if his straight cred weren’t already flimsy enough, that just served to crack away at it some more.

Later, we compared war stories. He was an adrenaline junky, active in things like skydiving, motorcycle racing and bike racing (running from some kind of buried truth, perhaps?) while I confessed that I was afraid to ride my bike in New York City.

“It’s dangerous,” he said sweetly. Too sweetly?

Chiseled and #137 wanted to go somewhere else and Nora, despite her wobbly state, wanted to dance, so they took us to Hotel-something on the Lower East Side, where we headed to the basement and started dancing to 80s tunes. #137 danced close, holding me to him as he swung me around. He had that look in his eyes. It was a look of…well, the only words that come to mind are “gay delight.” Yes, he had a look of gay delight.

I could also tell that he wanted to kiss me. When he’d lean in, I’d smile and dodge. Smile and dodge.

“You’re really not going to kiss me?” he said.

“OK, fine,” I said as if I’d been dared. And then we kissed. And it was really good. The last time a kiss was that good it was 1999 and I was on the dance floor of Red Dog in Chicago when MY GAY FRIEND Preston said he really wanted to kiss me, and, when we kissed, I nearly fell over. This time, #137 nearly fell over.

#137 leaned back, stunned. “Wow,” he said.

I just smiled as if I knew it would be stunning all along. By the time we decided to go, he’d already given the keys to his apartment to Chiseled so he could take a now-very-drunk Nora there. We got our coats at the third floor coat check, stopping at every floor to make out, and then stepped outside onto whatever Lower East Side street we were on.

“I really like kissing you,” he said. “You’re a really good kisser.”

“So are you,” I said, really just basking in my own apparent kissing skills.

It was the turning point. Would I go home to my home or to his home? I have to be honest, I was having a hard time overcoming his gayness. It was more than just a metrosexual thing. A gay glow shined just under the surface—like a blue vein under thin skin—in his voice, in his laugh, in his dancing. Deep down, I just wanted to go home, but Nora was at his place and she was drunk and maybe I should really check on her and…

Well, I did say yes, but the real reason I said yes? Real estate. I wanted to see his place. Living in New York, due to the small apartment sizes and consequent lack of parties, one rarely gets to see where people live. And he told me he had a one bedroom in an elevator building on the Lower East Side. It had to be nice.  

Signs of Hope: He wanted me to come home with him. And the kissing was good.

Red Flags: He just seemed so gay.

Turning Point: The moment when, driven by real-estate mania, I decided to go home with him.

Diagnosis: For him: He seems so nice and stable and available—and gay.

For me: Maybe I’m the only one who’s getting a gay reading; maybe that’s just my own unavailability talking.

Mr. Unavailable #137 (Intro): Spring Fever

See The Phoenix Rises, Paper Perfect, More Nouveau, Please, Visions of Sundance, Fantasyland and The Gongs of Doom for the background on this. 

OK, I know I’m fast-forwarding by quite a bit. It was February and then there was one date in March (#134, who, thankfully, never called for that second date) and now it’s April. Let's recap: Last we left off, I had finished “Calling in the One” with a solid idea of what I was looking for (a long-term, committed relationship) and had therefore taken myself off of my self-imposed guyatus. I’d also, due to a severe lack of contact, written off #113. Clearly, someone who lived in Arizona and only texted me on major romantic holidays (i.e., Valentine’s Day) was not what I was looking for.

After all that, I came flying out of the single gate with a serious case of misdirected spring fever. Misdirected as in Mr. Unavailable #s 135 and 136:

1         #135: I developed a serious crush on a guy who turned out to be gay despite my flirtatious attempts to prove him straight. Case in point: At a party, after getting over my crush-borne muteness, I found myself in conversation with him. We were talking about nicknames.

“It’s funny, in my phone, since I don’t have people’s last names, I have descriptions of them,” he said, “like ‘Johnny No-Thumb’ and ‘Katie Long Legs.’”

I’m not the quickest knife in the drawer when it comes to seizing flirty moments, but I seized this one.

“If I were in your phone, what would I be?”

It was perfect. If he was interested, he’d say something like, “Tara the Tantalizer” and then ask for my phone number.

“Um, I don’t know,” he said. “Probably ‘Tara Blonde.’”

Needless to say, he didn’t ask for my phone number.

2.     #136: I developed a crush on a guy friend of mine who’d recently broken up with his girlfriend of two years. I’d misinterpreted his Valentine’s Day text and various other flirty texts as real interest instead of what they were: Just a guy who’d recently broken up with his girlfriend of two years who was casting his net far and wide. In other words, he was probably just as misdirected as I was. There were two defining end moments.

     #1: When he said he’d meet me at The Bean where I was doing some writing and never showed up.

     #2: When he said he’d meet me at the café that I was at—again—and actually did show up but then started talking about his various sexual forays and ended with a critique of a recent liaise: “It might sound weird, but her lips are too small. I need someone with a big, full set of lips. I mean, look at my lips, these suckers are like fish lips. They need some massive kissers to be compatible.” I sat back in my seat mentally pursing my own meager pucker. Well, that was that.

All this is to say that I came flying into springtime with a: Very. Open. Mind. There were a few more revolving crushes in there, but you get the idea. I was up for anything. I even joined an “Over 40 Singles Club Meet-up” and I’m not even 40. Like I said, you get the idea. Nora and I started throwing social darts at all kinds of random city social targets: museum nights, meet-ups, tours. I was bound to hit the bull’s eye at least one time. And hit I did…with #137...